‘Unacceptable’: Airdrie’s mayor says urgent care centre closure a step backward

Closures at Airdrie’s urgent care centre has the city’s mayor fed up with health care in his city. Peter Brown is calling it a step backward.

Earlier this week, Alberta Health Services (AHS) said a shortage of doctors means Airdrie’s Urgent Care Centre will be closed overnight on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. for the next two months. New patients will not be admitted after 8 p.m. those days.

AHS describes this as a temporary measure taken as a last resort.

Brown says he’s been calling for expanded health care services for his city of 80,000 people, who he says are under-served.

“Our urgent care centre serves Rocky View County, Crossfield, Northwest Calgary, and Northeast Calgary. To close it is completely unacceptable. There’s probably over 150,000 people in and outside of Airdrie that commute into Airdrie for those services.”

Brown says he’s been pushing the province for better services for a decade.

“The province keeps telling us to be patient. To be honest, we’ve been patient long enough.”

Brown believes AHS should have anticipated these challenges long ago.

Meanwhile, Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare, says this is a disturbing trend.

“If you go look at the map of the summer closures across Alberta, at lot of the more rural communities we are seeing ER urgent care centre closures, we’re seeing gynecological closures. We’re seeing all sorts of closures throughout the summer due to short staffing,” said Gallaway.

“It’s very concerning when people need emergency care and can’t receive it whether it’s through EMS, emergency care, or urgent care centres so we’re pretty concerned.”

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Gallaway is calling on the government to work to fix these issues and take the next wave of COVID-19 seriously. He adds this is the culmination of a number of serious issues.

“The government went to war with doctors and we’ve seen doctors leave the province since that fight, they went to war with health-care workers. We’ve seen health-care workers leave.”

However, the bigger issue, according to Gallaway, is worker burnout.

“They’re exhausted, they’re understaffed. Now, people are experiencing another wave of COVID people aren’t able to come to work.”

AHS says those needing help during Airdrie’s Urgent Care Centre’s closure hours can go to another hospital and those with lesser health concerns can opt for a walk-in appointment at a local medical clinic first thing on Monday morning.

Patients are encouraged to use the health link at 811 which is available 24/7, for non-emergency, health-related questions. But if they need emergency help, they are advised to call 911.

For his part, Gallaway says when you need emergency or urgent care, the last thing you need is to discover the centre is closed, as it adds extra stress.

“People don’t call ahead to see if the emergency room is open. They’re really counting on people being aware of these closures in their day-to-day life,” said Gallaway.

Read more: ER doctors press Canada’s premiers to address staff shortages

AHS will be providing signage to let residents and businesses know of the closure.

Mayor Brown asks people to voice their thoughts on the closure by contacting Health Minister Jason Copping.

–With files from Jillian Code